...

• It is difficult to quickly assess the value of learning tools. When faculty are faced with a number of different Sakai tools, it is difficult to know which tools will improve their teaching or in-class experience.
• It is difficult to quickly find "good" new course materials. Although there is a perception that faculty have their own ideas about teaching, learning and research, they often look to their peers or their students for guidance to quickly determine the best available resources. Neither the library nor Sakai support access to this "collective wisdom."
• It is difficult to reuse scholarly resources (citations) from previous courses. Faculty often base their courses off of previous courses and need quick and easy ways to reuse previous content to limit their time on administrative tasks and focus on teaching and research.
• It is difficult to find multimedia resources (images, video). To create more engaging course materials, faculty are becoming more interested in leveraging the burgeoning amount of multimedia now available online.
• It is difficult to know which online course materials are highly used or effective for students. To become better instructors, faculty need to know if the materials they are currently preparing are effective.
• It is difficult to distinguish certain library services and resources. Faculty have well-established research methods and resources and expect the library to support them without too much regard to how the library supports them (i.e. different library systems for different types of content; library licensing or copyright policies).

...

• Instructors preparing for courses. Before the start of the semester, many instructors use Sakai to set up their course and rely on scholarly resources for readings, assignments and other course materials.
  • Research question: Why and how do instructors use scholarly resources while preparing their courses in Sakai?
• Instructors collecting research and using it within Sakai. Many instructors are constantly researching, finding new articles to read and use in research and teaching.
  • Research question: Why, when and how do instructors collect citations and use them within Sakai?
• Instructors seeking out library support during a course. At different points throughout the semester, instructors may reach out to librarians to provide their course with library resources or services.
  • Research question: Why, when and how do instructors reach out to librarians for course support?
• Students writing research papers. Many students are assigned to write papers that rely on research of scholarly materials.
  • Research question: Why, when and how do students use scholarly resources to write research papers within Sakai or similar systems (i.e. Google Docs)?
• others?

Vision Definition

Note: Before we move into defining the vision for this project, it is important to define the problem. It was decided that we needed to focus the problem and obtain more user data to ensure our work addresses real user needs. The below portion of this page is earlier work that will likely change and remains for reference.

...